Is anyone else here into film photography/cameras?
Over the last little while I've started buying (and fixing) up some old cameras, and have really been enjoying the experience of slowing down a tad after so many years of digital. This my collection at the moment: on the left a Zenza Bronica ETRS, then from top to bottom on the right, a Canon A-1, a Voigtländer Perkeo I with a Sekonic LC 2 meter on top, then a Canon 3000N (not as fun to use as the others, but it takes EF lenses and is super light so it's good to have around).
I've got a few rolls going on the Bronica, some Ektar 100 and some Fuji Acros 100 (I think, it was a while back and I very helpfully just labelled it 'B/W 100 ASA') and I'll definitely post some of my favourites once they're developed if I got anything good. Also, my local photo place was selling expired rolls for just $5 the other day so I picked up a couple of 35mm rolls too - it's always nice to find some cheap stuff as film seems to just be getting more and more expensive...
So, any other analogue enthusiasts? Favourite films or cameras? Got any photos you wanna show off?
It started for me as a hobby with an old 1960s Nikon F. I was taking general business courses in college and ended up taking a photography / darkroom class and loved it. Switched my major over to journalism and eventually ended up switching to an art school instead of college. Started freelancing while a student but also continued to pursue the art side of it. At this point I was shooting mostly with a Bronica SQA 6x6 as well as Rolliflex TLR, Omega 4x5 and a Nikon F2.
I built up a nice book of corporate clients which gave me steady income and a variety of shooting scenarios (journalistic, portraits, architecture, annual report etc.). My biggest client was a book called the Apartment Rental Guide. About 3 days per week I'd pick up 10-12 rolls of film and a list of apartment complexes. I'd plan a route and drive to each one shooting 1 roll of exteriors trying to make some really crappy apartments look attractive! Once a month we'd do a 4x5 exterior or interior shot for the cover. And then the recession of the early 1990s hit and they decided to just buy some cameras for the sales team and let them shoot their own photos. Bye-bye went my biggest client. I found myself shooting more and more weddings, going from mainly M-F work to F-Sun work. After about a year of this I was just so burnt out on it and stopped shooting for myself and eventually ended up selling everything, including all of my darkroom equipment. I think the only film camera I still own is the Rolliflex TLR.
I've started to get back into it and have a Fuji XT-2 that I recently bought after someone stole my Nikon DSLR and all it's lenses.
Wow, you've got a nice collection. I've always wanted to do film photography (more so, developing film), but it's just so much easier with digital.
While I've never done the actual developing myself, I've printed my own photos from negatives in a dark room and there really is something magical about seeing your photos just 'appear' on the paper, sorta like opening the marauder's map in Harry Potter it's rather surreal. As for digital being a lot easier, you're not wrong. If I need to document some event, or if I'm travelling I always go digital, but for artsy shooting on the weekends film is what I go with.
This is a hobby I have always been abstractly attracted to, but I was always worried I would end up sinking thousands of dollars into it. I love the idea of photography without the ability to take thousands of frames at a time and without being able to immediately check the outcome of the photo.
How is it that you started getting into this?
So when I was probably about 7-10 or so my dad used to bring out what I just saw as 'a big fancy camera that was too expensive for me to play with'. That was the Bronica. I didn't see it for years, and then a year or two back I dug it out of a box (along with my aunt's Canon AE-1 - now broken, but some parts have since been transplanted into my A-1). I played with it for some time, got used to the idea of film and then wanted to branch out a bit.
I asked around some older relatives and got lucky I guess, some of them had cameras lying around they didn't want anymore (the 3000N and the Voigtlander). From there I bought the A-1 for about $100 AUD and fixed it up (it's not in perfect condition, but it works).
You can probably find some cheap point and shoot film cameras fairly cheap online or in antique markets, and the best thing is, unlike digital, sorta dodgy equipment can actually add character, rather than take away from the photos (at least in my opinion). If you shop the deals on film as well (like the expired stuff for $5), the most expensive part ends up being development and scanning.
The hobby that I've sunk thousands of dollars into is digital photography! The technology is maturing now, so you can go longer between feeling the need to upgrade. In the first dozen or so years of this century, the technology was advancing rapidly. Each camera was better than the last, but they all still had limitations. Poor low-light performance was one that perpetually frustrated me. So every couple of years, I felt the need to upgrade. It's what I called "the digital treadmill". That's what drove me back to film. (BTW, I still shoot digital. It's probably 60% of my photography. I'm also still using the digital camera that I bought four years ago. It was finally good enough.)
The other thing that drove me back to film was the slower pace and the very limited number of exposures per roll (and that fact that each exposure has a real and significant cost). There are a lot of good film cameras out there for quite good prices. If you develop your own film, your per-exposure cost drops significantly. For me, the money I have spent on film cameras, film, and developing is less than I have spent on digital cameras; a lot less if you consider the much beefier computer hardware that digital photography encourages you to buy (Yes, just taking the straight out-of-camera JPEGs and using cheap/free photo-editing software is a viable alternative to that part of the hobby.).
Anyway, it's a matter of how you view things and what you want out of your hobby. I don't know anybody who shoots film exclusively. It's just a matter of degree. Find the balance that works for you.
I haven't done film in years! I started on a Minolta Maxxum (haven't been able to locate it for a while, not sure what happened to it), and have a Nikon F3. Just gave a couple old medium format cameras to a friend. Just got back into photo and newly into video with an 80D though, and I'm absolutely loving it.
Side note: If anybody wants some old enlargers, I'd be happy to give them away. They've been collecting dust for years but I've kept them out of the weather. I probably won't ever have the space for a darkroom again.
Hey the Minolta Maxxum is that super funky '80s looking early autofocus SLR right? If they weren't so expensive in good condition that'd be such an interesting camera to play around with. Although they're probably not as easy to fix up as other early, more mechanical film cameras though....
I had the 7000 iirc. Don't remember if it had autofocus but if it did it probably didn't work well because I never used it. Had an awesome little zoom/macro lens for it. I had to get the shutter fixed on it at one point, and I don't think I had more than a few hundred actuations on it after that. Last time I remember firing it up, it still worked awesome. Damn. I wonder where the hell that went.
You in SoCal by any chance? I have loads of darkroom stuff that have been waiting for a good home.
You never know, it might be floating around in a box somewhere! Also, I really appreciate the offer re. dark room stuff, but unfortunately I'm in Australia.... I do hope you find someone who will get some fun out of it!
I took and dark room developed my first roll of b&w and printed it when I was eleven. My dad had done freelance photography before he got married, and my grandfather was a film camera junkie. I love the craft, but my lifestyle camerawise is entirely digital.
Film's not where I put my disposable income these days. But I still love things like this.
A few years ago I was going to blow all my money and travel around Europe for a month, but before I did that I bought a Nikon DSLR, it has turned out to be one of the best investments I've ever made. I have high-quality pictures of all of my favorite memories and it gives me, frequently a serial recluse, a good reason to get out and do things.
When I was a teenager I was really into film photography and even developed my own photos for a time.
Unfortunately, as with many people I transitioned away to digital long ago.
I want to get back into film photography using my grandfather's Hasselblad 500C/M that has been sitting in my closet. If anyone has any specific film roll recommendations for it I'd love to know.
As gorgeous as Portra and Ektar are, they are expensive. I would recommend that you start out with a good, cheap B&W. Shoot a few rolls. You will make mistakes. I know you said that you used to shoot film a while back. You will probably still make mistakes. I did. Those skills rust after 5-10 years.
Once you feel confident that you can operate the camera and get decent exposures and have moved past stupid mistakes (that may only take a few rolls), then you will feel more comfortable shooting the more expensive films.
A good place to buy film is at Freestyle. They have their own private-label film, called Arista.edu. It's actually rebranded Fomapan. The stuff is made in the Czech Republic. Opinions vary, but most people agree that it is perfectly fine for a lot of purposes. Considering its price, it's a good value. I personally love Fomapan 100. Something about the look. I'm not so keen on the 200 and 400.
I recommend that you buy a few rolls of Arista.edu 100 to start with. It's only $4.29/roll. After that, go where your whim takes you.
Here is Freestyle's B&W 120 roll film page. They're based in the U.S. Not sure where you are.
If you want to try something with a better brand reputation, anything by Ilford is good. A few of their films are under $6.
I recently got a box of the Fomapan 200 in 4x5 and I've actually been really happy with the results when developed in Rodinal. It's certainly an older look than most of my other films but for less than $1 a sheet, I'm not complaining at all.
Ilford is an excellent suggestion. I'm a huge fan of their films, especially HP5. I shot a lot of it when I was first starting out in film photography. Fantastic latitude and just always looks good.
Ooh, that's a beautiful camera! I think, and I imagine many others will agree, that Kodak Portra is probably one of nicest looking films out there - here are some of my own photos on it. I also love Kodak Ektar, which has spectacularly vivid colours, as close as you'll get to more expensive and less versatile slide film without actually buying slide film. Again, here are some of my own taken on it.
I love those photos!
Thanks for the recommendations. They both seem to be available on Amazon, so I'll grab a few rolls of each later and give them a try.
Yeah, but I had some gear stolen and have not gotten the cash together for a new setup. It was all pretty random anyway, and not crazy expensive
I enjoyed using old canon lenses on an m4/3 cam.
When money becomes a thing for me again, I like the idea of getting some good manual lenses again, an m4/3 and the sweet speedbooster adapter which gives you a magical extra fstop.
Edit: just realized you said film, oops. At least my favorite lenses were made for film cams :)
Oh boy, this will be a long list so I'll keep it short and stick to my most used stuff.
My most used camera is my Nikkormat EL for 35mm, a Fujica GSW690II for 120, and I also have my Wista 45 for large format. Besides that... some 40 or so cameras in total. I mostly collect weird Soviet cameras, so I've got a Zenith 80 (rare UK export version of the Salyut-C), and a Kiev 60, a Zorki 4, and a 16mm subminiature Kiev Vega. I've got 2 Canon EOS cameras, including an RT, which is a really weird one. The mirror is fixed and translucent, so there's no finder blackout and it shoots nearly instantly. A Polaroid 104 Auto. Couple of cheap rangefinders. Olympus XA. And tons more that I've lost track of through my office.
I've also got something cool which is vaguely film related, an old projection lens from the original line of Cinemascope adapters made by Bausch & Lomb. It's probably over 70 years old at this point.
And my film fridge: https://imgur.com/a/COe6dck
It's a little easier for me to shoot as I work at a camera store, and specifically in the photolab. We're probably the busiest lab in Ontario, certainly up there for Canada.
Wow, that's a hell of collection, and mostly stuff I've never even heard of too. Nice!
I‘ve been taking photo‘s as long as I can think. It‘s not so much a hobby to me and more a creative element of expression in my line of work (I am a composer and sound designer) – photography and video goes along with my creative process.
My first digital camera was a Nikon D40X which is long gone. My current camera‘s are:
Which reminds me I still have to get rid of some, since I mainly only use 1 or 2 at the moment. But you know, I sometimes just can‘t hold still when I see a cool camera on the flea market ;)
My favorite camera is by far the pouva start. Even though compared to the near–perfect quality of the digital SLR it takes pretty crappy pictures, I still love the magical quality of this plastic camera. It was made in the GDR and even my dad had one when he went on vacation to bulgaria back in the 70s. The plastic turns brittle after a while and pulverizes in your hands. It‘s my second pouva now. Let‘s hope there are still a couple left on ebay the next time it dies ;)
Some photo‘s I have on redbubble:
https://www.redbubble.com/de/people/dreikelvin
I know how you feel re. not being able to resist buying a new camera particularly if you see a good deal. Just between making this post and writing this comment I bought Canon AE-1... It's probably not a good thing but I guess it's pretty good as far as hobbies go, and people have spent money on more ridiculous things....